Until 2024, exporting wines to Europe has including ensuring your labels are in line with that country’s laws. Now, as of January 1, the EU is also imposing a laundry list of items to put on your labels. First, you must write on your labels the list of allergens – eggs, milks, sulfites. Second, you […]
Starting January 1, 2024, wineries that ship wine to California must follow its new recycling rules. Read further! First, if you send wines to California residents (for which you must have a direct shipper permit), you must register an account with the state’s recycling unit. Start setting aside $0.10452 (ten cents and four hundredth and […]
States require businesses to register with them before operating in their states. Some states, like Delaware, offer significant protection of identities to the members or shareholders; others, like Oregon, favor ‘blue-sky’ theories of open disclosure. Congress now wants to open the doors of those shaded states’ entities but our PNW entities must join as well. […]
Safety is a priority for our industry, whether in the field, during sorting, in production, and bottling. And our federal and state workplace safety agencies, OSHA, want to ensure we’re doing all we can to keep ourselves, our employees, and our customers safe. OSHA mandates industries with fewer than twenty employees to hold regular safety […]
I am the most boring winemakers’ lawyer in the PNW. I read lists of new winery applications and I read the TTB’s recent offers in compromise. A recent one caught my eye – a $12,000 penalty for the most frustrating of reasons. The licensee failed to update the TTB with a change of ownership, management, […]
DISCLAIMER: My partner works in the banking industry. I’m not speaking on his behalf nor on behalf of the bank he works for. A recent blog article by an executive at Silicon Valley Bank gives the wine industry many reasons to smile. As many of you know, SVB is one of the first names we […]
Ever since the very close results in Wallola County on the Greater Idaho – Ballot Measure 32-007 is around a difference of 8 votes, as of May 31 – I have been thinking about the effect of Greater Idaho on those Oregon wineries and wine-drinkers in the proposed new territory. For those who aren’t aware, […]
Finally…after years of begging, the Oregon legislature has aligned the tax class designations of wine to 16%, which is the current standard. For years, the TTB and OLCC mirrored each other with the percentage threshold of 14% for tax class (but the feds also classify artificially carbonated and naturally sparkling as different classes). As a […]
Starting Jan. 17, veterans in acute suicidal crisis will be able to go to any VA or non-VA health care facility for emergency health care at no cost — including inpatient or crisis residential care for up to 30 days and outpatient care for up to 90 days. Veterans do not need to be enrolled in VA health care […]
You know this. You know I know this. But the statistics prove it out! The most recent Shanken database and forecast tell us that over the last year, Oregon wines grew nearly 13%, almost to 5.3 million cases. Keep in mind that the analysis is for 2021 sales, and thus wines likely produced in 2020 […]